Dave Sutherland Photo Gallery: Hummingbirds
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Hummingbird photos courtesy of Kevin Smith.
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Hummingbirds: Fun Facts & Observations
A hummingbird’s wings beat about 50 or 60 times per second. Just stop and think about that. 50 times per second. Try flapping your arms like that.
A quarter of the bird’s weight is dedicated to humongous pectoral muscles to drive those wings. Imagine if pectoral muscles accounted for a quarter of a human’s weight.
Their little hearts beat about 1200 a minute, compared to a human heart that only beats 60 – 80 times a minute.
In spring, listen and watch for male Broad-tailed hummingbirds doing their power-dive display for females: the bird flies about 100’ up and hovers to make sure she’s watching, then DIVES at the ground at full speed while making his whirring sound. He pulls up just before he smashes into the dirt.
An adult hummingbird weighs less than a penny. And their eggs are as big as jelly beans.
Scientists have clocked hummingbirds at 60 mph at the bottom of the dive, and the pull-up exposes them to forces in excess of 9 Gs, which would drive a trained fighter pilot unconscious. In terms of speed, the hummers are covering about 385 body-lengths per second, nearly twice as fast for their size as a Peregrine Falcon power dive (200 body lengths per second) and far faster per size than a diving fighter jet.
